IT is only the truth that will set us all free from the terrible secrets and crimes of clerical child abuse. Justice will only give some comfort to the suffering victims. The harm can be healed, but it is never undone. Pope Francis has enacted instructions and church laws that demand bishops admit mistakes, stop protecting pedophile priests and hand them over to the civil authorities. Many refuse to do so.

The Swiss Bishops Conference, however, decided that the better strategy than continued silence and denial of the continuing revelations in the media of widespread clerical child abuse was to come clean after decades of secrecy and clerical abuse cover-up. They commissioned independent research by the University of Zurich into clerical child abuse some time ago and are now facing the truth, as the world is, about the thousands of victims of clerical abuse revealed by the study's partial results.